Shakira reveals she was attacked by a sea lion

Shakira was attacked by a sea lion while on holiday, she has revealed.

The 'Hips Don't Lie' star was enjoying a vacation in Cape Town, South Africa when the animal leapt out of the water and tried to bite her after mistaking her mobile phone for a fish, says The Sun.

The singer claimed that the sea lion had "roared in fury" when it launched itself at her, and suggested that she would have been killed if she hadn't been saved by her brother 'Super Tony'.

"This afternoon I happened to see some sea lions and sails. I thought how cute they were so decided to get closer than all of the other tourists and went down to a rock," she wrote in a blog on her Facebook profile. "Suddenly, one jumped out of the water so fast that it got about one foot away from me, looked me in the eye, roared in fury and tried to bite me."

She added:

Everyone there screamed, including me. I was paralysed by fear and couldn't move. I just kept eye contact with it while my brother 'Super Tony' jumped over me and literally saved my life, taking me away from the beast.

Shakira, who said she had scratched her hands and legs trying to fend off the sea lion, reasoned: "I believe it confused the reflection of the BlackBerry phone I was taking pics with, with some sort of fish. It thought I was teasing it with food."

Shakira released her last studio album, 'Sale El Sol', in October 2010. According to an interview with Billboard.com, she is set to start work on the follow-up this year.